Dog Park

Supplies required:
cardboard box or some other item to build the dog park in
modeling clay (again, I love Crayola's model magic)
miniature dogs (we used these:  http://www.amazon.com/Safari-695504-Ltd-Dogs-Toob/dp/B000GYZ3QG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324142646&sr=8-1)

A few weeks ago E and I made a dog park out of modeling clay.  We put the dog park in part of a cardboard box.  We made a bridge, a pond, grass, a bowl of dog food, a bench, etc.  We also used some wooden blocks to build a little shelter for the dogs so they could be out of the sun.  After we built the dog park, E had a ton of fun letting the dogs play in the park.  We got out a small bouncy ball so the dogs would have a ball to play with.

Here's a picture of the dog park (and my son W peeking up over the box):

Glitter pinecones

Supplies required:
pinecones
glitter (white or silver work especially well, but any color will do)
glue
white paint
paint brushes
paper bag(s) (optional)

Last weekend E and I made glitter pinecones.  Luckily, we have a forest in our own front yard, so we were able to collect plenty of pinecones for this project.  (I'm pretty sure we could have collected enough pinecones for an entire school to do this project.)  Although the project was a little messy, it was easy, fun, and now we have beautiful pine cones to display in a bowl on our dining room table.

Once we collected the pinecones, we mixed together white paint and glue (equal parts of each, but I don't think it matters that much as long as you have enough glue) and then we used paintbrushes to brush the mixture onto the pine cones.  You can't spend too long painting, or the paint and glue will dry and you won't be able to put the glitter on.  We each painted one pine cone at a time, and then we applied the glitter.  I had gotten a variety package of different colors of glitter, so we used white, red, and two different kinds of silver.  I dumped each color of glitter in its own small paper lunch bag.  When a pinecone was ready, we dropped it in the bag and then shook it around to get it coated in the glitter.  We then took it out and set it on a newspaper to dry and started painting a new pinecone. 

E loved this project, and so did I.  The pictures definitely don't do the pinecones justice.  They are much more sparkly in person.

This was us painting the pinecones before we put the glitter on:

And this is the finished product (again, this doesn't adequately capture the pinecones at all):